


Ever Blue

by WindWisp



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Australia, Depression, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-18 23:19:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4723988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WindWisp/pseuds/WindWisp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin's return to Australia didn't have the effect he had hoped for...</p>
<p>A short, dark drabble. Rin-centric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ever Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry.  
> I don't even know.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to end up.

The whole point of Rin returning to Australia was so that he could triumph over the ghosts of his past and prove once and for all that even his own failures couldn’t stop him from achieving his dream.

Visiting here with Haru had been a dream. Now that he was grown up, the old places that used to fill him with dread had no longer had any effect on him. He had finally felt like he could conquer his fears and prove his worth, not only to the world, but to himself as well.

Little did he know that Haru had been the determining factor.

Because now that he was here alone, fear had crept back into his consciousness. His host family’s house, which with Haru had been a place of fond smiles and familial warmth, was now a source of nothing but nerves as he tried desperately to remember how to converse naturally in English. Everywhere he had visited on his last trip to Australia, which had then inspired only feelings of dull regret and rose-tinted nostalgia, now hit him full-force with memories of all the pain and humiliation he had felt in middle school.

All that had kept him going through these past few months in Australia had been the thought that, hundreds of miles away, Haru was waiting for him. Haru was somewhere in Tokyo, training hard so that he and Rin would still be at the same level once Rin was back in Japan.

Or at least, that was what Rin had assumed. But from the numbers he’d managed to pry from Haru the last time they had talked, if the two of them were to race now, it would end in a repeat of that fateful race six years ago. And Rin couldn’t bear it.

He had already cancelled his flight home for the New Year in a few weeks, putting in a request with his university to stay in the dorms over winter break. His sister and friends would no doubt be devastated, but Rin hadn’t had the courage to tell them yet. He couldn’t deal with their concern and questions right now, and turning his phone off was out of the question until the semester ended.

He had even skipped swim practice today, instead wandering around downtown, staring out at the ocean and trying not to think about the life he could be living if he had stayed on the other side. After all, how was missing one day of practice going to harm him? His times had reached a plateau over a month ago, and showed no signs of getting any better.

Rin paused on the walkway of the bridge he had been crossing, leaning his elbows on the railing as he stared down at the waves below. Normally he would miss the calm, sparkling beaches around Iwatobi, but there was something fitting about how the oceans surrounding Australia were alive with waves and whitecaps, beating mercilessly against rock and sand alike. From his spot against the railing, Rin could see where those waves would break against the bridge supports, crashing against metal with a vicious, growling noise, a continuous whirling of froth and foam.

How fitting it would be, Rin thought, to lose himself in those waves. To let the ocean do physically what Rin had been so weak as to let the land do mentally – to break him down until nothing was left but a hollow shell. And who knows? Maybe the ocean would carry his broken body back to Japan, and he would be buried up on the cliff, next to his father. Maybe Haru would visit his grave.

Rin climbed to stand on the railing, holding onto a support cable as he looked out at the blue horizon.

Someone shouted.

A woman screamed.

But Rin was already falling.

And he had never felt more at peace.


End file.
